Table Of ContentThe Project Gutenberg EBook of To Love, by Margaret Peterson
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Title: To Love
Author: Margaret Peterson
Release Date: September 3, 2008 [EBook #26519]
Language: English
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A Table of Contents has been created for the HTML version. Minor punctuation errors have been
corrected without notice. Several words were spelled in two different ways and not corrected; they are
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indicated with a mouse-hover and are also listed at the end.
"To Love"
"To love is the great amulet which makes
the world a garden."
R. L. STEVENSON
"TO LOVE"
By Margaret Peterson : Author of
"The Lure of the Little Drum," "Tony Bellew," etc.
LONDON: HURST AND BLACKETT, LTD.
PATERNOSTER HOUSE, E.C. :: :: 1917
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
[Pg 5]
[Pg 7]
[Pg 8]
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIV
CHAPTER XXV
CHAPTER XXVI
CHAPTER XXVII
CHAPTER XXVIII
CHAPTER XXIX
CHAPTER XXX
CHAPTER XXXI
"TO LOVE"
CHAPTER I
"Oh, but the door that waits a friend
Swings open to the day.
There stood no warder at my gate
To bid love stand or stay."
"You don't believe in marriage, and I can't afford to marry"—Gilbert Stanning laughed, but the sound was not very
mirthful and his eyes, as he glanced at his companion, were uneasy and not quite honest. "We are the right sort of
people to drift together, aren't we, Joan?" His hands as he spoke were restless, fidgeting with a piece of string which he
tied and untied repeatedly.
Joan Rutherford sat very straight in her chair, her eyes looking out in front of her. His words had called just the faintest
tinge of colour to her cheeks. It was not exactly a beautiful face, but it was above everything else lovable and appealing.
Joan was twenty-three, yet she looked still a child; the lines of her face were all a little indefinite, except the obstinacy of
her chin and the frankness of her eyes. Her one claim to beauty, indeed, lay in those eyes; wide, innocent,
unfathomable, sometimes green, sometimes brown flecked with gold. They seemed to hint at tragedy, yet they were far
more often laughter-filled than anything else. For the rest, Joan was an ordinary independent young lady of the twentieth
century who had lived in London "on her own" for six months.
How her independence had come about is a complicated story. It had not been with the approval of her people; the
only people she possessed being an old uncle and aunt who lived in the country. All Joan's nearer relations were dead;
had died when she was still a child; Uncle John and Aunt Janet had seen to her bringing up. But at twenty-two and a-
half Joan had suddenly rebelled against the quiet monotony of their home life. She had broken it to them gently at first,
with an obstinate resolve to get her own way at the back of her mind; in the end, as is usually the case when youth pits
itself against age, she had won the day. Uncle John had agreed to a small but adequate allowance, Aunt Janet had wept
a few rather bitter tears in private, and Joan had come to London to train as a secretary, according to herself. They had
taken rooms for her in the house of a lady Aunt Janet had known in girlhood, and there Joan had dutifully remained. It
was not very lively, but she had a sense of gratitude in her heart towards Aunt Janet which prevented her from moving.
[Pg 9]
[Pg 10]
Joan was not thinking of all this as she sat there, nor was she exactly seeing the sweep of grass that spread out in front
of them, nor the flowering shrubs on every side. Hyde Park was ablaze with flowers on this hot summer's day and in
addition a whole bed of heliotrope was in bloom just behind their chairs. The faint sweet scent of the flowers mixed with
Joan's thoughts and brought a quick vision of Aunt Janet. But more deeply still her mind was struggling with a desire to
know what exactly it was that swayed her when Gilbert Stanning spoke to her, or when—as more often than not—he in
some way or other contrived to touch her. She had met him first at a dance that she had been taken to by another girl
and she had known him now about four months. It was strange and a little disturbing the tumult his eyes waked in her
heart. The first time he had kissed her, one evening when they had been driving home from the theatre in a taxi, she had
turned and clung to him, because suddenly it had seemed as if the whole world was sweeping away from her. Gilbert
had taken the action to mean that she loved him; he had never wavered from that belief since. He possessed every
spare minute of her days, he kissed her whenever he could, and Joan never objected. Only oddly, at moments such as
this, her mind would suddenly push forward the terse argument:
"Do you love him, or is it just the little animal in you that likes all he has to give?"
Joan was often greatly disturbed about what she called the beast side of her. During her year in London, under the
guidance of another girl far older and wiser than herself, she had plunged recklessly into all sorts of knowledge, gleaned
mostly from books such as Aunt Janet and even Uncle John had never heard of, far less read. So Joan knew that there
is a beast side to all human nature, and she was for ever pausing to probe this or that sensation down to its root. Her
books had taught her other theories too, and very young, very impetuous by nature, Joan rushed to a full acceptance of
the facts over which older women were debating. The sanctity of marriage, for instance, was a myth invented by man
because he wished to keep women enslaved. Free love was the only beautiful relationship that could exist between the
sexes. Frankness and free speech between men and women was another rule Joan asserted, in pursuance of which she
had long since threshed out the complicated question of marriage with Gilbert. It was all rather childish and silly, yet
pathetic beyond the scope of tears, if you looked into Joan's sunlit eyes and caught the play of dimples round her
mouth. Rather as if you were to come suddenly upon a child playing with a live shell.
What Gilbert Stanning thought of it all is another matter; Joan with all her book-learned wisdom had not fathomed his
character. He was a man about thirty-two, good-looking, indolent and selfish. He had just enough money to be
intensely comfortable, provided he spent it all on himself, and Gilbert certainly succeeded in being comfortable. There
had been a good many women in Gilbert's life of one kind and another, but he had never known anyone like Joan
before. At times her startling mixture of knowledge and innocence amazed him, and she had fascinated him from the
first. He was a man easily fascinated by the little feminine things in a woman. The way Joan's hair grew in curls at the
nape of her neck fascinated him, the soft red of her mouth, the way the lashes lay like a spread-out fan on her cheeks
and the quick changing lights and colours in those eyes themselves. With Gilbert, when he wanted a thing he generally
got it, by fair means or foul; for the moment he wanted Joan passionately, almost insanely. But the way in which she
made the path easy for his desire sometimes startled him; he could not make up his mind whether she was playing some
very deep game at his expense or whether she really loved him to the exclusion of all caution.
It was this problem which he had been more or less trying to solve this afternoon. At Joan's continued silence he leaned
forward and put his hand over hers where they lay on her lap.
"What are you dreaming of, little girl?" he asked.
The odd flutter which his touch always caused was shaking Joan's heart; she tried, however, to face him indifferently,
summoning up a smile.
"I was thinking," she corrected, "not dreaming."
"Well, the thoughts, then," asked the man, his fingers moved caressingly up and down her hand, "what were they?"
"I was thinking," began Joan slowly; her eyes fell from his and she stirred restlessly. "What did you mean just now when
you spoke about drifting together?" she asked.
"Little Miss Pretence," he whispered, "as if you didn't know what I meant. If I were well off," he said suddenly (perhaps
for the moment he really meant it), "I would make you marry me whether you had new ideas about it or not."
"Being well off wouldn't have anything to do with it," Joan answered, "it is more degrading to marry for money than
anything else."
"Sometimes I believe you think that we are degrading altogether," the man said; he watched the colour creep into her
face, "God knows we are not much to boast of, and that is the truth."
Joan struggled with the problem in her mind. "There ought not to be anything degrading about love," she said finally, and
this time it was his eyes that fell away from hers.
For a little they sat silent, Joan, for some reason known only to herself, fighting against a strong inclination to cry. Gilbert
had taken away his hands, he sat back in his chair, his feet thrust out, head down, eyes glooming at the dust. Joan stole
a glance at him and felt a sudden intense admiration for the beauty of his clean-cut profile, his sleek, well-groomed
head. Instinctively she put out a timid hand and touched him.
[Pg 11]
[Pg 12]
[Pg 13]
"Are you angry with me about something?" she asked.
It may have been that during that pause Gilbert had been forming a good resolution with all that was best in him to keep
from spoiling this girl's life. Her eyes perhaps had touched on some slumbering chord of conscience. Her movement
though, the little whispered words, drove all thoughts except the ones which centred round his desire from his mind.
"Joan," he said quickly, his hands caught at hers again, "let us stop playing this game of make-believe. Let us face the
future one way or another. I love you, I want you. If you love me, come to me, dear, as you say there can be nothing
degrading in love. Let us live our lives together in the new best way."
It was all clap-trap nonsense and he did not believe a word of it, but the force of his passion was unmistakable. It
frightened and held Joan.
"You mean——" she whispered.
"I mean that I want you to come and live at my place," he answered. "I have a decent little flat, as you know. That is not
living on my money, O proud and haughty one"—he was so sure of his victory that he could afford to laugh—"you shall
buy your own food if you like. And you shall be free, as free as you are now, and—I, Joan," his voice thrilled through
her, "I shall love you and love you and love you till you waken to see the world in quite a new light. Joan!"
His face was very close against hers, the scent of the heliotrope had grown on the sudden stronger and more piercingly
sweet, perhaps because the sun had vanished behind the distant line of trees and a little breeze from the oncoming night
was blowing across the flower-beds towards them. The quick-gathering twilight seemed to be shutting them in; people
passed along the path, young sweethearting couples too happy in each other to notice anyone else. The tumult in Joan's
mind died down and grew very still, a sense of well-being and content invaded her heart.
"Yes"—she spoke the word so softly he hardly heard—"I'll come, Gilbert." Then she threw back her head a little and
laughed, gay, confident laughter. "It will be rather fun, won't it?" she said.
CHAPTER II
"Oh, wisdom never comes when it is gold,
And the great price we pay for it full worth.
We have it only when we are half earth,
Little avails that coinage to the old."
George Meredith.
It was not quite so much "rather fun" as Joan had expected. It had, she discovered, its serious and unpleasant side.
Serious, because of the strange undreamt-of woman that it awoke within her, and unpleasant because of the deceit and
the telling of lies which Gilbert insisted it must involve. Joan hated deceit, she had one of those natures that can never be
really happy with an unconfessed lie on their mind.
Gilbert won her to do as he thought necessary, first by persuasion and then by using the power which he had
discovered he could wield over her by his touch.
"For my sake, darling," he argued, "it is all right for us because we understand each other, but the world would certainly
describe me as a cad."
So for his sake Joan told Mrs. Thomas, with whom she had been living, that she had accepted a residential post as
private secretary; packed up her boxes and took her departure amidst a shower of good wishes and warnings as to
how she was to hold her own and not be put upon. To Aunt Janet, with a painful twinge of regret, Joan wrote the same
lie. She wanted to tell the truth to Aunt Janet more even than she wanted to live it out aloud to herself. The memory of
Aunt Janet's face with its kindly deep-set eyes kept her miserable and uncomfortable, and the home letters brought no
more a feeling of pleasure, only a sense of shame and distaste.
How silly it was to connect shame with what she and Gilbert had chosen as life! Yet, unfortunately for her peace of
mind, the word was constantly reverting to her thoughts. "It is the telling lies that I am ashamed of," she would argue
hotly to herself, and she would shut her heart to the still small voice and throw herself because of it with more zest than
ever into their life together.
Gilbert's flat was high up in one of the top stories of a block of buildings which fronts on to Knightsbridge, bright, airy
and cheerful. Not too big, "Just room for the two of us and we shut the world outside," as Gilbert took pleasure in
saying. It only consisted of four rooms, their bedroom and dressing-room, the sitting-room and Gilbert's smoking-room,
a place that he talked vaguely of working in and where he could entertain his men friends, without bothering Joan, when
they called to see him.
[Pg 14]
[Pg 15]
[Pg 16]
The windows of their bedroom opened out over the green of the Park. Sometimes the scent of the heliotrope crept up
even as far as that; whenever it did Joan would have to hold her breath and stand quite still because the fragrance
brought—not Aunt Janet now—but Gilbert before her. It had blown in just like that the first night she had been in the
room; the memories it could rouse were bewildering, intoxicating, and yet ... Joan would have to push the disturbing
thoughts from her and run to find Gilbert if he were anywhere in their tiny domain, to perch on the arm of his chair and
rub her face against his coat. His presence could drive away the vague feeling of uneasiness, his hands could win her
back to placid contentment or wake in her the restless passionate desire which she judged to be love.
It had been on one of these occasions that, running to find Gilbert, she had flung open the door of his smoking-room
and got well inside before she discovered that he had some men with him. Gilbert lifted his head with a frown, that she
noticed, while the guests struggled to their feet. There was a little silence while they all looked at her, then, with a
muttered excuse, she retreated, closing the door behind her. But before it quite shut she heard one of the men laugh and
say:
"Hulloa, Stanning, so that is the secret of our bachelor flat is it? thought you had been lying very low this last two
months."
She did not catch Gilbert's reply, she only knew that the sense of shame which had been but a fleeting vision before had
suddenly taken sharp, strong hold of her. She stood almost as it were battling against tears.
That evening across their small dining-table, after the waiter from the restaurant downstairs had served the coffee and
left them, she spoke to Gilbert, crumbling her bread with nervous fingers, finding it difficult to meet his eyes.
"Those men," she said, "who were here this afternoon, what do they think of me? I mean," she flushed quickly, "what do
they think I am?"
"Think you are," Gilbert repeated, "my dear girl, I suppose they could see you were a woman."
"I mean, had you told them, did they know about us?"
"Silly kid," he smiled at her indulgently, "the world is not so fearfully interested in our doings."
"No, but they are your friends," the hazel eyes meeting his held some wistful question. "Wouldn't they wonder, doesn't it
seem funny that they shouldn't be my friends too?"
Gilbert rose, conscious of a little impatience. The strange thing was that since the very commencement of their life
together his conscience had not been as easy as he would have liked to have had it. Joan's ideas had been so
ridiculously simple and straightforward, she was almost a child, he had discovered, in her knowledge and thoughts. Not
that he was a person to pay much attention to principles when they came in contact with his desires, only it annoyed and
irritated him to find she could waken an undreamt of conscience in this way. He shook off the feeling, however, with a
little laugh, and, rising from the table, crossed over to her, standing behind her, drawing her head back against his heart.
"Not satisfied with our solitude," he teased; "find it dull?"
"No, it's not that," she answered; she had to fight against the temptation to let things go, to lift up her lips for his kiss.
"It's because—well, you didn't introduce me, they must have thought it queer."
"Oh, hang it all, dear," he remonstrated, "I could not pass you off as my wife or sister, they would know it was not true.
What do you want to know them for anyhow? Sclater works at the office with me and the other man is a pal of his, I
have never met him before."
"I see," she agreed; he had not at all understood her, but she doubted if she could quite explain herself. "It doesn't
matter, Gilbert." She sat a little away from him, sweeping the crumbs together with her fingers.
Behind her back Gilbert shrugged his shoulders and allowed the frown to show for a second on his face. Then he turned
aside and lit a cigarette.
"Let's do a theatre to-night, Joan," he suggested, "I am just in the mood for it."
She was not just in the mood for it, but she went; and after the theatre they had supper at the Monico and Gilbert
ordered a bottle of champagne to cheer them up; with the lights and music all round them and Gilbert's face opposite
her, his lips smiling at her, his eyes caressing her, Joan forgot her mood of uneasiness. In the taxi going home she crept
close up against him, liking to feel the strong hold of his arms.
"You love me, and I love you, don't I, Gilbert?" she whispered; "that is all that really counts."
"It counts more than all the world," he answered, and stooped to kiss her upturned lips.
She made no new friends in her life with him, the old ones naturally fell rather into the background; it was impossible to
keep up girl friendships when she was never able to ask any of them home with her. Once she went back to see Mrs.
Thomas, but the torrent of questions, none of which could be answered truthfully, had paralysed her. She had sat dumb
and apparently sulky. Mrs. Thomas had written afterwards to Aunt Janet:
[Pg 17]
[Pg 18]
"I do not think Joan can be really happy in her new post. She is quite changed, no longer her bright,
cheery self."
And that had called forth a long letter from Aunt Janet to Joan. If she was not happy and did not feel well she was to
leave at once. It had been her own wish to go to London, they had never liked the idea. "You would not believe, Joan,
how dull the house is with only John and me in it, we miss your singing and laughter about the place. Come back home,
dear; even if it is only for a holiday, we shall be delighted."
There was a hint behind the letter that unless she had a satisfactory reply at once she or Uncle John would come up to
London to see Joan for themselves! Joan could imagine the agitation and yet firm purpose which would preface the
journey. She wrote hastily. She was perfectly happy and ridiculously underworked. Everyone was so good to her, one
day soon she would take a day off and run down and see them, they should see how well she was looking.
But the writing of the letter brought tears to her eyes, and when it was sealed up and pushed safely out of harm's way
she sat and cried and cried. Once or twice lately she had had these storms of tears, she was so unused to crying that
she could not account for them in any way except that she hated having to tell lies. That was it, she hated having to tell
lies.
It was about a fortnight later that Gilbert at breakfast one morning looked up from a letter which the early post had
brought him with a frown of intense annoyance on his face. Also he said "Damn!" very clearly and distinctly.
Joan pushed aside the paper and looked at him.
"Anything wrong?" she asked; "is it business, or money, or——"
"No, it is only the mater," he answered quickly; "she writes to say she is coming to pay me a little visit, that I am to see if
I can get her a room somewhere in the building, she is going to spend two or three days shopping in town and hopes to
see a lot of me."
"Oh," said Joan rather blankly. Gilbert never talked very much of his people; once he had shown her a photograph of
his mother because she had teased him till he produced it. "Don't you like the idea? Gilbert, was that what you said
'damn' about?"
"Not exactly," his eyes travelled round the room; "you'll have to clear out, you know," he said abruptly.
"You mean you want her to have our room and take another one in the building for yourself?" asked Joan. "I daresay
Mrs. Thomas would give me a bed for a night or two."
"Yes, that is it," he agreed; "and you will have to hide away all traces of yourself, mustn't leave anything suspicious lying
about. The old lady might have given me a day or two's notice;" he had returned to his letter, "hang it all, she says she
will be here to-morrow."
Joan had pushed her chair back and stood up, her breakfast unfinished. She was staring at his down-bent head,
struggling with a wild desire to scream, to cry out against the curtain of shame he was so wilfully sweeping across their
life together. She fought down the impulse though and moved over to the window.
"You want me to go away and hide?" she asked from there, her voice dangerously quiet.
He glanced up at her. "Keep out of the mater's way," he acknowledged, "she would have seven fits."
"Why?" asked Joan.
"Why," he repeated, "good Lord, you don't know the mater. She——"
Joan interrupted. "You are ashamed of me," she spoke quickly, her face had flushed. "You have always been a little
ashamed of me. You have never really looked at it as I did. I thought——" she broke off and turned away from him,
stupid hot tears were blinding her eyes, she did not want to cry, it was so useless and childish.
Gilbert stuffed his mother's letter into his pocket and rose to his feet, stretching a little as he moved.
"Don't be ridiculous, kiddie," he said, "you must see it would not do for you to meet the mater. She is old-fashioned and
—well, she would not understand."
"We could make her understand," Joan whispered, "if she saw we both really meant it."
"Well, I don't want you to try," he answered bluntly.
"Don't you feel the same about me as if I were your wife?" She knew he was close beside her, but she did not turn to
look at him.
Gilbert put an arm round her and drew her close. "Of course I do," he said, "but mother wouldn't. One does not exactly
introduce one's mother to one's mistress."
The inclination to tears had left Joan, a very set calm had taken its place. Suddenly she knew, as she stood there stiff
held within the circle of his arms, that it was all ended. The dream, if it had been a dream, was finished, she could not
[Pg 19]
[Pg 20]
[Pg 21]
live in it any longer.
"Very well," she agreed listlessly. "I will see about going away, the place shall be all ready for her to-morrow."
She moved away from him, he did not notice how purposely she shook the touch of his hands from off her.
CHAPTER III
"Out of my dreams,
I fashioned a flower;
Nursed it within my heart,
Thought it my dower.
What wind is this that creeps within and blows
Roughly away the petals of my rose?"
M. P.
"That is the end of lying," whispered Joan.
She threw down her cloak to keep the corner seat in the carriage and stepped out on to the platform to see if she could
catch sight of a paper boy.
She had not seen Gilbert since the morning. He had had an appointment in the city, he had left it to her to get the flat
ready for his mother. And she had done everything, there was nothing that she could reproach herself with. She had
engaged an extra room for Gilbert on the next floor, she had bought fresh flowers, she had made the place look as
pretty as possible. It had not taken her long to do her own packing, there was nothing of hers left anywhere about. And
all morning she had kept the window overlooking the Park tight shut. The scent of flowers should bring no disturbing
memories to weaken her resolve. Then when everything had been quite settled she had sat down to write just a short
note to Gilbert.
"I have tried to make you understand a little of all I felt this morning, but it was not any use. You
cannot understand. It is just that we have always looked at things differently. I cannot live with you
any more, Gilbert; what is the use of trying to explain. It is better just to say—as we agreed that either
of us should be free to say—it is all finished, and good-bye."
She had propped the letter up for him to find, where she knew he would look first of all, by his pipe and matches on the
mantelpiece. Now she had taken her ticket to Wrotham and wired Aunt Janet to say she was coming. But as she stood
waiting for the train to start it occurred to her that she was really watching to see Gilbert's slim, well-built figure push its
way through the crowd towards her. The thought made her uneasy, she hoped he would have been late getting home;
she doubted her strength of will to stand against him should he appear in person to persuade her.
He did not come, however, and presently with a great deal of noise and excitement, whistles blowing and doors
slamming, the train was off and she could sit back in her corner seat with a strange sense of pleasurable excitement at
having so far achieved her purpose.
Uncle John was at the station to meet her. A straight-held old figure—in his young days he had been in the army and
very good-looking—now the bristling moustache was white and the hair grew in little tufts either side of an otherwise
bald head. Ever since Joan could first remember him Uncle John had moved in a world separate from the rest of the
household and entirely his own. It was not that he took no interest in them, it was just that he appeared to forget them
for long intervals, talking very seldom, and when he did always about the days that were past. He had never married,
but there had been one great love in his life. Aunt Janet had told Joan all about it, a girl who had died many years ago;
after her death Uncle John had lived for nothing but his regiment. Then he had had to leave it because old age had called
for retirement, and he had sent for Aunt Janet to come and keep house for him and together they had settled down in
the old home at Wrotham—both unmarried, both very quiet and content to live in the past. Then Joan had descended
on them, a riotous, long-legged, long-haired girl of eight, the child of a very much younger, little known brother.
With the coming of Joan, new life and new surprising interest had awakened in Aunt Janet's heart, but Uncle John had
remained impervious to the influence. He was very fond of Joan in his way, but he scarcely ever noticed and he certainly
knew nothing about her. He had realized her less and less as she grew up; when he spoke or thought of her now it was
always as still a child.
"You are a nice young lady," he greeted her good-humouredly, stooping to kiss Joan at the station; "your Aunt Janet
was sure this sudden return meant a breakdown. She is all of a twitter, so to speak, and would have been here to meet
you herself only we have got a Miss Abercrombie staying with us. Where's the luggage?"
"I have only brought my small things with me," Joan explained, "the rest are coming on. I am sorry Aunt Janet is
[Pg 22]
[Pg 23]
worried, and who is Miss Abercrombie?"
"Friend of your aunt's," he answered; he took her bag from her. "I have brought the trap, Janet thought you might be too
delicate to walk." He chuckled to himself at the thought and picking up the reins climbed into the cart beside her. "Don't
think Sally has been out twice since you left, see how fat she has got."
The little brown pony certainly answered to the implication. Her sides bulged against the shafts and bald patches were
manifesting themselves, caused by the friction.
"What have you been doing then?" asked Joan; "why haven't you been out?"
"Nothing to go for," he answered, "and I have been too busy in the garden. Extended that bit down through the wood."
The garden was his one great hobby.
"And Aunt Janet," Joan questioned, "she always used to like taking Sally out."
"I suppose that was when you were here;" he looked down at her sideways, "she missed you, I think, but she potters
about the village sometimes." He relapsed into silence, and Joan could see that his thoughts were once more far away.
Several of the villagers came out as they passed through the little village street to bob greetings to the young lady of the
manor, as they had always called Joan. Wrotham did not boast many county families; there was no squire, for instance.
The Rutherfords occupied the old manor house and filled the position to a great extent, but they owned none of the land
in the neighbourhood, and the villagers were not really their tenants. And beyond the Rutherfords there was no one in
the village who could undertake parochial work except the vicar, a hard-working, conscientiously mild gentleman, with
a small income and a large family. He could give plenty of spiritual advice and assistance, but little else; the old people
and the invalids of the parish looked to Aunt Janet for soups and warm clothes and kindly interest.
Wrotham boasted a doctor too. As Joan remembered him he had been a gentleman of very rubicund complexion and
rough manners. Village gossip had held that he was too fond of the bottle, but when sober he was kindly and efficient
enough for their small needs. He had been unmarried and had lived under the charge of a slovenly housekeeper. As the
Rutherfords drove past his house, a square brick building with a front door that opened on to the village street, Joan
noticed an unfamiliar air of spruce cleanliness about the front door and the window blinds.
"Dr. Simpson has had a spring cleaning," she said, pointing out the transformation to Colonel Rutherford.
He came out of his reverie, whatever it was, and glanced at the house. "No," he said, "Simpson has left. There are new
people in there. Grant is their name, I think. Young chap and his sister and their old mother. Came to call the other day;
nice people, but very ignorant about gardens. Your aunt has taken a great fancy to the young man."
With that the trap turned into the wide open gates of the manor, and Joan, seeing the old house, was conscious of a
quick rush of contentment. She had come home; how good it was to be home.
The house, a beautiful grey building of the Tudor days, stood snug and warm amid a perfect bower of giant trees. Ivy
and creepers of all sorts clung to its stones and crept up its walls, long tendrils of vivid green. The drive swept round a
beautifully kept lawn and vanished through a stone gateway leading into the stable-yard. It was only a pretence at a
garden in front. Uncle John always held that the open space which lay at the back of the house and on to which the
drawing-room windows opened was the real thing. There, was more green grass, which centuries of care and weeding
and rolling had transformed into a veritable soft velvet carpet of exquisite colour that stretched out and down till it met
the wood of tall trees that fringed the garden. Flowers were encouraged to grow wild under those trees; in spring it was
a paradise of wild daffodils and tulips. That was Aunt Janet's arrangement; Uncle John liked his gardens to be orderly.
He was responsible for the straight, tidy flower-beds, for the rose gardens, for the lavender clumps that grew down at
the foot of the vegetable garden. For lavender is not really an ornamental flower and Uncle John only tolerated it
because of Aunt Janet's scent-sachets.
Beautiful and old and infinitely peaceful, the sight and colour of it could bring back childhood and a sense of safety to
Joan, a sense that Uncle John's figure and face—dear and familiar as they were—had been quite unable to do. London,
her life with Gilbert, the rack and tumult of her thoughts during the past six months appeared almost as a dream when
seen against this dear old background.
Aunt Janet was waiting their arrival in the hall, and Joan, clambering down out of the trap, ran straight into those
outstretched arms.
"Oh, Aunt Janet, it is good to be back," she gasped. Then she drew away a little to take in the tall, trim figure dressed
all in black save for a touch of white at neck and wrists; the face stern and narrow, lit by a pair of very dark eyes, the
firm, thin-cut mouth, the dark hair, showing grey in places, brushed back so smooth and straight and wound in little
plaits round and round the neat head. "You are just the same as ever," Joan said. "Oh, Aunt Janet, it is good to get
back."
The dark eyes, softened for the moment by something like tears, smiled at her. "Of course I am just the same, child.
What did you expect? And you?"
"Oh, I am I," Joan answered; her laughter sounded unreal even to herself.
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"You have been ill," contradicted Miss Rutherford, "it is plain to see all over your face. Thank God, I have got you
back."
She brushed aside the sentiment, since it was a thing she did not always approve of.
"Come away in and have your tea. John, leave Mary to carry up Joan's boxes; she will get Dick to help her; they are
too heavy for you. Your uncle is getting old," she went on, talking brusquely as she helped Joan off with her coat, "he
feels things these days."
"I haven't been away more than a year, Aunt Janet," laughed Joan; "you talk as if it had been centuries."
"It has seemed long," the other woman answered; her eyes were hungry on the girl's face as if she sought for something
that kept eluding her. "A year is a long time to people of our age."
"Dear, silly, old Aunt Janet." Joan hugged her. "You are not a second older nor the tiniest fragment different to what you
used to be. I know you don't like being hugged; it makes you untidy; but you have simply got to be just once more."
"You always were harum-scarum," remonstrated Aunt Janet, under this outburst. She did not, however, offer any real
objection and they went into the drawing-room hand-in-hand.
A small, thin lady rose to greet them at their entrance and Joan was introduced to Miss Abercrombie. Everything about
Miss Abercrombie, except her size, seemed to denote strength—strength of purpose, strength of will, strength of love
and hate. She gave Joan the impression—and hers was a face that demanded study, Joan found herself looking at it
again and again—of having come through great battles against fate. And if she had not won—the tell-tale lines of
discontent that hung about her mouth did not betoken victory—at least she had not been absolutely defeated. She had
carried the banner of her convictions through thick and thin.
Joan was roused to a sudden curiosity to know what those convictions were and a desire to have the same courage
granted to herself. It gave her a thrill of pleasure to hear that Miss Abercrombie would be staying on for some time. She
was a schoolmistress, it appeared, only just lately health had interfered with her duties and it was then that Aunt Janet
had persuaded her, after many attempts, to take a real holiday and spend it at Wrotham.
"Sheer vice on my part, agreeing," Miss Abercrombie told Joan with a laugh; "but everyone argued with me all at once
and I succumbed."
"Just in time," Aunt Janet reminded her; "I was going to have given up asking you; even friendship has its limits."
They had tea in the drawing-room with the windows open on to the garden and a small, bright fire burning in the grate.
Aunt Janet said she had discovered a nip in the air that morning and was sure Joan would feel cold after London. Uncle
John wandered in and drank a cup of tea and wandered out again without paying much attention to anyone.
Aunt Janet sat and watched Joan, and the girl, conscious of the scrutiny and restless under those brown eyes as she had
always been restless in the old days with a childish, unconfessed sin on her conscience, talked as lightly and as quickly
as she could upon every topic under the sun to Miss Abercrombie. And Miss Abercrombie rose like a sportswoman to
the need. She was too clever a reader of character not to feel the strain which rested between her two companions. She
knew Aunt Janet through and through, the stern loyalty, the unbending precision of a nature slow to anger, full of love,
but more inclined to justice than mercy where wrongdoing was concerned. And Joan—well, she had only known Joan
half an hour, but Aunt Janet had been talking of nothing else for the last fortnight.
They kept the subject of Joan's life in London very well at bay for some time, but presently Aunt Janet, breaking a
silence that had held her, leaned forward and interrupted their discussion.
"You have not told us why you left, Joan," she said, "or what has been settled about your plans. Are you on leave, or
have you come away for good?"
Miss Abercrombie watched the faint pink rise up over the girl's face and die away again, leaving a rather unnatural
pallor.
"I have left," Joan was answering. "I——" Suddenly she looked up and for a moment she and Miss Abercrombie
stared at each other. It was as if Joan was asking for help and the other woman trying to give it by the very steadiness
of her eyes. Then Joan turned. "Aunt Janet," she said, hurrying a little over the words, "I want to ask you to let us not
talk of my time in London. It—it was not what I meant it to be, perhaps because of my own fault, but——"
"You were not happy," said Aunt Janet; her love rose to meet the appeal. "I never really thought you were. I am content
to have you back, Joan; we will let the rest slip away into the past."
"Thank you," whispered Joan; the burden of lying, it seemed, had followed her, even into this safe retreat; "perhaps
some day, later on, I will try and tell you about it, Aunt Janet."
"Just as you like, dear." Aunt Janet pressed the hand in hers and at that moment Mary, the servant-girl, appeared in the
doorway with a somewhat perturbed countenance.
"Please, mum, there is that Bridget girl from the village and her mother; will you see them a minute?"
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The charity and sweetness left Miss Rutherford's face as if an artist had drawn a sponge across some painting. "I'll come
directly," she said stiffly; "make them wait in my little room, Mary."
"The village scandal," Miss Abercrombie remarked, as the door closed behind the servant; "how are you working it out,
Janet? Don't be too hard on the unrighteous; it is your one little failing."
"I hardly think it is a subject which can be discussed before Joan," Miss Rutherford answered. She rose and moved to
the door. "I have always kept her very much a child, Ann; will you remember that in talking to her."
Miss Abercrombie waited till the door shut, then her eyes came back to Joan. The child had grown into a woman, she
realized; what would that knowledge cost her old friend? Then she laughed, but not unkindly.
"I know someone else who has kept herself a child," she said, "and it makes the outlook of her mind a little narrow. Oh,
well! you won't like me to speak disrespectfully of that very dear creature, your aunt. Will you come for a stroll down to
the woods or are you longing to unpack?"
Joan chose the latter, because, for a second, despite her instantaneous liking for Miss Abercrombie, she was a little
afraid. She wanted to set her thoughts in order too, to try and win back to the glad joy which she had first felt at being
home, and which had been dispelled by Aunt Janet's questions and her own evasive replies.
"I will do my unpacking, I think," she said, "and put my room straight." She met the blue eyes again, kindly yet keen in
their scrutiny. "I understand what you mean about Aunt Janet," she added; "I have felt it too, and, Miss Abercrombie, I
am not quite such a child as she thinks; I could not help growing up."
"I know that, my dear," the other answered, "and God gave us our eyes to see both good and evil with; that is a thing
your Aunt Janet is apt to forget. Well, run away and do your unpacking; we will meet later on at dinner."
CHAPTER IV
"I have forgotten you! Wherefore my days
Run gladly, as in those white hours gone by
Before I learnt to love you. Now have I
Returned to that old freedom, where the rays
Of your strange wonder no more shall amaze
My spirit."
Anon.
If you see trouble in the back of a girl's eyes look always for a man in the case. That was Miss Abercrombie's
philosophy of life. Girls do not as a rule get into trouble over money, for debts or gambling. She had spent the whole of
her practical life in studying girls; she knew fairly well the ins and outs of their complicated natures. Joan was in trouble
of sorts; what then had become of the man? Until the time came when the girl would be driven to speak—and Miss
Abercrombie was sure the time would come sooner or later—she was content to stay silent and observant in the
background of events. Often Joan felt as though the shrewd eyes were drawing the unwilling truth from behind her mask
of indifference, and she was, in a way, afraid of the little, alert woman who seemed to be taking such an intense though
silent interest in her.
For the first fortnight Gilbert wrote every day. To begin with, his letters were cheerful. He was inclined, indeed, to chaff
her for losing her temper over his mother's visit.
"The old lady is gone," he wrote on the third day. "You can come back with perfect safety. She never
smelt a rat, but tried to talk to me very seriously about taking unto myself a wife. It was on the tip of
my tongue once or twice to tell her that I was already as good as married. Don't keep on being stuffy,
Joan, hurry up and come back. You can't think what a lot I miss you, little girl, or how much I want
you."
It was the first of his letters that she made any attempt to answer and her reply was not easy to write. She had come
very suddenly to her decision as she had stood within the circle of Gilbert's arms that morning and answered his
arguments about his mother. Now she was realizing that for weeks before that her allegiance had been wavering. She
had no wish to go back to him. She could not understand herself, but the fact was self-evident, even though the scent of
heliotrope haunted her days and crept into the land of her dreams. Her letter, when it was finished, struck her as cold
and stupid, yet she let it go; she could not somehow make her meaning any clearer.
"Dear Gilbert," she wrote, "I am sorry you do not seem to be understanding that what I wrote in my
first letter is really true. It is all finished between us and I am not coming back. There is not anything
else to say, except that I should be happier if you did not go on writing. Nothing can change me, and it
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only keeps open old thoughts."
He wrote in answer to that a furiously angry, altogether unpleasant letter. Joan read it with shrinking horror, it seemed to
lay bare all that she had been only half aware of before, the ugliness, the smallness of what she had at first thought was
love.
"If you try to marry anyone else," the letter ended on a cruelly ugly note, "remember I can spoil your
little game for you, Joan. There is no man who will marry you when they learn the truth."
She tore up his other letters after that; the very sight of his handwriting brought hot shame to her heart.
How much the people of the house noticed she hardly knew. Aunt Janet had fallen into the habit of watching her
covertly, pathetically; she was trying in her own way to read the secret hidden away behind a changed Joan. But she did
her best to keep her curiosity out of sight; she was very gentle, very anxious to divert Joan's thoughts and keep her
happy.
Uncle John, of course, noticed nothing. Joan helped him to potter about in the garden—they were building a rookery
down by the woods—or sometimes she would take him for long walks and he would stump along beside her wrapped
in indifferent silence, or else, carried away by some reminiscence of the old days, would start talking about the regiment
and the places where he had been stationed. It was only Miss Abercrombie that Joan was really uneasy with, and the
end of Miss Abercrombie's visit was in sight.
One afternoon, on a day which had seen one of Gilbert's unopened letters destroyed, Joan and Miss Abercrombie
started out together soon after tea to take a basin of jelly to one of Aunt Janet's pet invalids who lived in a cottage away
out at what was called the Four Cross Roads.
It was one of those very fine blue days common to September. Just a nip of cold in the air, the forerunner of winter, and
overhead the leaves on the trees turning all their various reds and golds for autumn.
"The sky gives one a great sense of distance this afternoon," Miss Abercrombie said presently. "You never see a sky
like this in towns; that is why you get into the habit of thinking things out of proportion."
"What makes you say that?" asked Joan; "I mean, how does the distance of the sky affect it?"
"Oh, well, it makes one feel small," the other answered, "unimportant; as if the affairs that worry our hearts out are, after
all, of very little consequence in the scheme of existence."
"They are our life," Joan argued, "one has to worry and work things out for oneself."
"You are a Browningite," laughed Miss Abercrombie; she glanced up sideways at her companion.
"'As it were better youth
Should strive through acts uncouth
Towards making, than repose on aught found made.'
He is right in a way, though, mind you, I don't know that it pays women to do much in the struggling line."
"I do wonder why you say that," said Joan; "you have always struck me as being, above everything else, a fighter."
"Probably why my advice lies along other directions," admitted Miss Abercrombie; "it is extremely uncomfortable to be
a pioneer."
"But in the end, even if you have won nothing, it brings you the courage of having stuck to your convictions."
"Yes," Miss Abercrombie answered dryly, "it certainly brings you that."
They walked in silence again for a while, turning into a short cut to their destination across the fields.
"Your aunt has got convictions too." Miss Abercrombie reopened the conversation, evidently her thoughts had been
working along the same lines. "They are uncomfortable things; witness the judgment she metes out to that unfortunate
girl in the village."
"You mean Bridget?" Joan's voice had suddenly a touch of fear in it; Miss Abercrombie stole a quick look at her. "I
was asking Mary about her the other day."
"Immorality, your aunt calls it," sniffed Miss Abercrombie, "and for that she would quite willingly, good, kind woman as
she is, make this child—Bridget is seventeen, you know—an outcast for the rest of her life. Immorality!"
"What would you call it?" questioned Joan; she spoke stiffly, for she was singularly uneasy under the discussion, yet she
had always wanted to argue the matter out with Miss Abercrombie.
"I hate the word 'immoral' to begin with," the little woman went on; "not that I am exactly out against regulations. Laws
and customs have come into being, there is little doubt about that, to protect the weak against the strong. The peculiar
thing about them is that they always wreak their punishments on the weak. Poor Bridget, even without your aunt's
judgment, she pays the penalty, doesn't she?"
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"I suppose Aunt Janet is a little hard about these things," Joan admitted. "You see, the idea of going against laws and
things has never occurred to her. She has always obeyed, she has never wanted to do anything else."
"Quite so," agreed Miss Abercrombie; "my dear, don't let us talk about it any more. I always lose my temper, and I
hate losing my temper with someone whom I love as much as I do your Aunt Janet."
"But I am interested in what you think," Joan went on slowly; the red crept into her cheeks. "I don't believe in marriage
myself; I think people ought to live together if and when they want to, and leave each other when they like."
Miss Abercrombie stared with dismay at the flushed face. "My dear," she said, and her tone had fallen upon far greater
seriousness than the former discussion had evoked, "both of those are...
